Written by: Judith Bellafaire, Ph.D., Curator
Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation, Inc.history@womensmemorial.org

Although thousands of Asian-Pacific-American
women have served and are serving in the US Armed Forces in times of war
and peace, only a small number of these women have told their stories by
registering with the Women In Military Service For America Memorial. In
celebration of Asian-Pacific Heritage Month 1999, we are recognizing several
of these women by sharing their military experiences.

Asian-Pacific-American women first entered
military service during World War II. The Women's Army Corps (WAC) recruited
50 Japanese-American and Chinese-American women and sent them to the Military
Intelligence Service Language School at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, for training
as military translators. Of these women, 21 were assigned, to the Pacific
Military Intelligence Research Section at Camp Ritchie, Maryland. There
they worked with captured Japanese documents, extracting information pertaining
to military plans, as well as political and economic information that impacted
Japan's ability to conduct the war.

Other
WAC translators were assigned jobs helping the US Army interface with our
Chinese allies. For example, Corporal Helen M. Lee of Willows, California,
joined the WAC in August 1943 and was assigned as a Chinese translator of
GI training films at Lowry Army Air Field in California.

Not all Asian-Pacific-American WACs worked
as translators. In 1943, the Women's Army Corps recruited a unit of Chinese-American
women to serve with the Army Air Forces as "Air WACs." The Army lowered
the height and weight
requirements for the women of this particular unit, referred to as the Madame
Chiang Kai-Shek Air WAC unit. The first two women to enlist in the unit
were Hazel (Toy) Nakashima and Jit Wong, both of California. Air WACs served
in a large variety of jobs, including aerial photo interpretation, air traffic
control, and weather forecasting.

Sergeant
Julia (Larm) Ashford joined the WAC in 1944 and served in the Pacific Theater
of Operations. After the war, Sergeant Ashford was sent to Germany as part
of the Army of Occupation. She remained in the Army until 1948, when she
enlisted in the newly formed Air Force where she served until 1953.

A unique group of civilian women, Women
Air Force Service Pilots (WASP) worked directly with the Army Air Forces
on the home front during World War II ferrying planes from factories to
air bases, testing planes for mechanical problems, and towing targets for
aerial gunnery students to practice shooting. WASPs performed these dangerous
assignments willingly
during the years when male pilots were needed at the front. Thirty-eight
WASP died in the line of duty, one being a Chinese-American, Hazel (Ying)
Lee.

Lee flew pursuit (fighter) aircraft from
the production factories to air bases across the continental United States.
She "named" the planes she flew by inscribing Chinese characters in lipstick
on the tails. Her husband was an officer in the Chinese Air Force. Lee died
in a two-plane crash when her plane and that of a colleague received identical
instructions from an air traffic controller on their approach to Great Falls
AFB, Montana.

Maggie
Gee, a 1941 graduate of Berkeley High School, started the war as a mechanical
draftsman at Mare Island, California. However, her dream was to fly and
as soon as she had saved enough money, she took flying lessons. She accumulated
50 hours of flight time and qualified for acceptance into the WASP. After
graduating from the training program, Gee was assigned a training position.
She took military pilots up for qualifying flights to renew their instrument
ratings and copiloted B-17 Flying Fortress bombers through mock dogfights
staged to train bomber gunners.

A
small number of Asian-Pacific-American women entered the Army Nurse Corps
during World War II. Army nurse Helen (Pon) Onyett risked her life tending
wounded soldiers from the landing craft that came ashore in North Africa.
She was awarded the Legion of Merit for her actions during the war and retired
from the Corps as a full colonel. Major Mildred Nouchi also elected to make
the Army Nurse Corps her career. During the Vietnam War, she was stationed
at an Army hospital in Japan.

Over
200 Asian-Pacific-American women joined the US Public Health Service Cadet
Nurse Corps during World War II. Gail (Chin) Wong, a Chinese-American, served
from 1945-1949. She later worked in a Veterans Administration hospital from
1972 until her retirement in 1988.

Although the Navy refused to accept Japanese-American
women throughout World War II, some Chinese-American women volunteered to
serve. Marietta (Chong) Eng, born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to a Chinese-American
family, decided to
enlist in the WAVES because her brother was in the Navy. Her recruiter was
initially uncertain about Eng's eligibility and had to check the rule book.
The Navy trained Eng as an occupational therapist and assigned her to the
US Naval Hospital on Mare Island, California, and later to the Naval Hospital
in Corona, California. Ensign Eng helped rehabilitate sailors and officers
who had lost arms and legs in the war, teaching them to accomplish the many
tasks of daily living.

Nymphia (Yok) Taliaferro of Tacoma, Washington,
joined the WAVES and was assigned as the Director of the Radio Communication
School at the University of Miami at Oxford, Ohio.

Filipino-American women worked with the
underground resistance movement to help American forces in the Philippines
throughout the three-year period of Japanese occupation during World War
II. These courageous individuals smuggled food and medicine to American
prisoners of war (POWs) and carried information on Japanese deployments
to Filipino and American forces working to sabotage the Japanese Army.

Florence (Ebersole) Smith Finch, the daughter
of an American soldier and a Filipino mother, was working for the US Army
when the Japanese occupied Manila, the Philippines. Claiming Filipino citizenship,
she avoided being imprisoned with other enemy nationals at Santo Tomas Internment
Camp in Manila. Finch joined the underground resistance movement and smuggled
food, medicine and other supplies to American captives. Eventually, she
was arrested by the Japanese, tortured, and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
Finch was liberated by American forces after serving five months of her
sentence. Returning to the United States aboard a Coast Guard transport,
she headed for Buffalo, New York, her father's hometown. She then enlisted
in the Coast Guard to "avenge the death of her late husband," a Navy PT
boat crewman killed at Corregidor. Seaman First Class Finch was the first
Coast Guard SPAR to receive the Asian-Pacific Campaign ribbon in recognition
of her service in the Philippines. At the end of the war, she was awarded
the civilian US Medal of Freedom.

Another Filipino woman who received the
Medal of Freedom after the war was Josefina V. Geurrero. She supplied POWs
with food, clothing, and medicine, and passed them contraband messages.
A member of the underground resistance, Geurrero was asked in the early
days of the occupation to map Japanese fortifications at the Manila waterfront.
Her map included information on secret tunnels, air raid shelters and a
number of other new installations in which the allies were interested. Just
before the American invasion of Manila in 1945, Geurrero was asked, by her
underground contacts, to carry a map through Japanese held territory showing
the location of land mines along the planned American invasion route. She
walked most of the way with the map taped between her shoulder blades. She
strapped a pack on her back, distracting the enemy, who concentrated their
searches on the pack rather than on her. She reached the 37th Division with
the map, enabling the Americans to avoid the land mines that had been laid
for them.

After the war, 11 Nisei (second generation
Japanese-American) WACs, one Chinese-American WAC and one Euro-American
WAC, all skilled Japanese translators who had trained at the Military Intelligence
Service Language School, accepted assignments to the Allied Translator and
Interpreter Section of General Douglas MacArthur's Headquarters in the Army
of Occupation in Tokyo, Japan. There they worked as clerks, secretaries
and translators.

The
Nisei WACs, Americans "with Japanese faces," were expected to show the Japanese
what Americans of Japanese ancestry were like, and to help build bridges
across a cultural gap. MacArthur, however, did not approve of enlisted WACs
serving overseas. He gave the women a choice of returning to the United
States as WACs or being discharged from the Army and serving one-year contracts
in Japan as civilians with US federal civil service status. All 13 agreed
to stay in Japan as civil servants.

During
the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, Asian-Pacific-American women continued to enter
the military and to work in civilian organizations affiliated with the military,
although in reduced numbers. Ruth A. Tanaka joined the Army Nurse Corps
in 1949 and served for 20 years, retiring as a lieutenant colonel. During
her military career, she was stationed at the 98th General Hospital, Munich,
Germany; Tokyo Army Hospital, Japan; Fort Ord Army Hospital, California;
the 110th Evacuation Hospital, Germany; Beaumont General Hospital, Texas;
the 121st Evacuation Hospital, Korea; and Letterman Army Hospital, San Francisco,
California.

Lieutenant (junior grade) Yachie (Doi) Abarbanell
of Fowler, California, joined the Navy in 1953 and served as an assistant
cryptographic officer at the Naval Station in Long Beach, California.

Ellen Miyasaki, born in Kalopa, Hawaii,
volunteered for duty with the American Red Cross. During the Korean Conflict,
she served as an interpreter at the American Embassy in Yokohama, Japan,
from 1951 to 1952. She was then assigned to the neuropsychiatric department
of the 141st General Hospital in Hakata, Japan, where she served from 1952
to 1953. She later served as an interpreter in Okinawa.

Rita
Chow was selected for the Army RN Student Scholarship Program after graduating
from high school. Chow joined the US Army Nurse Corps in 1954 as a second
lieutenant. In 1955, she completed a Master of Science degree in teaching
and surgical nursing at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. The
Army assigned her as a Medical Surgery Nursing Instructor at Fitzsimmons
Army Hospital in Denver, Colorado. She was soon promoted to first lieutenant
and became an instructor to medical corpsmen at Brooke Army Medical Center,
Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. She was discharged from active duty
in 1958 and spent the next 11 years in the Army Reserve. She taught at Army
hospital reserve units in Detroit, Michigan, and New York City, and graduated
from the Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
In 1968, Chow transferred to the US Public Health Service Commission Corps,
where she rose to the rank of captain and served as the Deputy Chief Nurse
of the Corps from 1973 to 1977.

Betty (Ow) Lambeth was born in San Francisco,
California, and joined the Army after high school. Staff Sergeant Lambeth
says that her proudest moment in the Army was when she became the First
Honor Graduate of Company A, 3rd Battalion of the 4th Advanced Individualized
Training Brigade, in the Engineer Equipment Mechanics Course at Fort Leonard
Wood, Missouri, in May 1976.

Asian-Pacific-American women continue to volunteer in defense of the nation. Born in Xian,
China, Colonel Yeu-Tsu "Margaret" Lee, US Army Medical Corps, was one of
four active duty surgeons assigned to the 13th Evacuation Hospital, a National
Guard unit from Wisconsin, during Operation Desert Storm. The unit set up
a 400-bed hospital in northern Saudi Arabia and performed 125 operations.
One of Lee's patients was a high-ranking officer of the Iraqi Republican
Guard. Although the unit gave him the best care possible, she thought how
ironic it was that the Iraqis had threatened to bomb allied hospitals, which
was the reason that these hospitals were not marked with the Red Cross.

US
Army Staff Sergeant Virginia Juloya-Balanga, born in the Philippines, also
deployed to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. Juloya-Balanga found
her moral guidelines in the service and has fulfilled her personal goals,
living her life by the Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer and the Leaders
Code.

A new generation of women has entered the
armed forces determined to make their mark on history. In 1996, First Lieutenant
Zun-May Woo, US Air Force, deployed as part of a seven-member team to the
Air Force Top Dollar Competition, which tested the abilities of finance
and contracting members to survive and operate in a deployed environment.
Twelve such teams represented the best in their respective commands. Woo's
team was announced the winner.

Captain
Melissa Kuo of Manchester, Connecticut, joined the Marine Corps in 1992
and served on active duty until 1996, when she transferred to the Marine
Corps Reserve. She spent a six month deployment aboard the USS Peleliu
as a member of the first Western Pacific (WESTPAC) Marine Expeditionary
unit to include women. Kuo joined the Marine Corps Reserve in 1997 and served
in Bosnia for nine months during Operation Joint Guard, a NATO peacekeeping
mission.

As the 20th century comes to an end, Asian-Pacific-American
servicewomen can be proud of their contributions over the past 50 years
to the US military. To date, however, only a small number of Asian-Pacific-American
servicewomen have registered with the Women In Military Service For America
Memorial. Please remember that until these women are registered with us,
we will be unable to tell the complete story of their service. Spread the
word about the Women's Memorial and register any women you know who have
served, or are serving, their country in uniform.

May is Asian-Pacific
Heritage Month
More than two million women have served in the US Armed Forces beginning
with the American Revolution. May is Asian-Pacific Heritage Month and
an opportune time to tell the stories and relive the history of America's
military women. The Women In Military Service For America Memorial Foundation,
Inc., continues its national campaign to locate and register women veterans,
active duty servicewomen, women serving in the National Guard and Reserves
and women who have served in service organizations so that they can be
recognized in the Memorial's interactive database—the Register—which
places the names, photographs, military histories and memorable experiences
of registered servicewomen at the public's fingertips. During Asian-Pacific
Heritage Month, why not celebrate women's contributions by registering
yourself, a relative, friend or historical figure in the Women's Memorial?
If you are, or know of a woman who has served or is currently serving in
the military, please call 1-800-4-SALUTE or write the Women's Memorial,
Dept. 560, Washington, DC 20042-0560. Internet users can contact the Foundation
through e-mail at hq@womensmemorial.org.